Kidney Cancer

Kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma) affects over 40,000 people per year in the U.S., and 12,000 per year die from the disease, making it the most lethal of the urologic cancers. Nowadays, it is usually found incidentally on CAT scans of the abdomen ordered for other reasons. Not all lesions in the kidney are cancerous, with benign lesions (i.e., cysts) commonly found. Many kidney cancers are genetic, but there is no other well established cause of this disease. Surgery remains the mainstay of therapy for kidney cancer, and our surgeons offer every type of surgery currently available including:

• Radical nephrectomy
  Removal of the entire kidney and possibly the nearby lymph nodes and adrenal gland. Larger tumors most often require this operation. It may be done with either an open or laparoscopic approach.
   
• Partial nephrectomy
  For smaller tumors, it is often possible to remove the tumor alone, preserving the rest of the kidney. It may be done with either an open or laparoscopic approach.
   
• Cryotherapy
  For smaller tumors, this is when the lesion is frozen until the tissue is killed. It is a newer type of treatment that appears effective in early studies. This is usually performed laparoscopically.